A new report by media analyst Screen Digest predicts that the market for rich media advertising on mobile will reach $2.79 bn by 2012, with global mobile TV advertising driving considerably the total with a contribution of $2.44 bn.

The report, 'Mobile media advertising opportunities: The market for advertising on TV, video and games' examines the emerging markets in 25 countries for rich media advertising delivered to consumers via their mobile phone in the form of TV, video, games, user-generated content (UGC) and music.

The analyst believes that in terms of the formats that will deliver this revenue, there are those that will deliver, and those that will disappoint. Mobile TV and video on demand will be among the former category.

Commented David MacQueen, Head of Mobile at Screen Digest and co-author of the report, "Mobile advertising, and mobile rich media advertising in particular, is a growing industry with a rapidly evolving landscape. Nokia, Microsoft and Google have been very active in developing mobile advertising operations, either internally or through external acquisitions. The potential is huge, and some of the world's largest companies are vying for control of what they see as the next major advertising medium."

Screen Digest forecasts that by 2012, advertising will account for over 20% of mobile TV revenues, but without its own metrics it will struggle to be considered a stand alone advertising channel.

Free-to-air broadcast markets such as Japan and South Korea will offer bigger advertising opportunities than markets where mobile TV will be offered as paid subscriptions to the consumer, such as North America and most of Europe.

The revenues gleaned from mobile Video-on-Demand advertising will be small in comparison, reaching $336m in 2012 by supporting extracts from popular programmes and sponsoring recurring content such as news and weather forecasts.

Yet despite this potential, Screen Digest is keen to point out that mobile advertising is very much in its infancy. Noting the factors that are holding back the mass market take up of mobile advertising, Julien Theys, one of the authors of the report, said, "Data pricing structures, handset and mobile web usability, content quality and the lack of audience metrics to measure effectiveness are preventing mobile advertising from reaching its market potential.

"Although we expect these hurdles to be overcome in the coming years, mobile media advertising will have to compete with search, display, messaging advertising as well as many innovative uses of mobile in marketing campaigns."